Chapter 3: Spite

Chapter 3 

"Spite me?" She finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were anything but pleasant.

"Ryker, don't be stupid. How could you even joke about such a thing? Spite me -she huffed-, Ryker, are you a fool?" She asked him, not expecting an answer.

"I'm going to inherit the family business soon." He tried to change the topic.

"Don't change the topic and didn't you say that she didn't give you a definite answer?" His mother asked as she sighed. 

She was clearly not in the mood, Lillian could feel herself getting older every time she talked to her son. 

"She would obviously agree, she graduated top of her class in high school, she's a smart girl." He said as he headed for the door.

"I'll be leaving now, goodbye." Ryker said his goodbyes as he shut the door on his way out, leaving his mother all alone to ponder about the decision of her second son.

To say she was disappointed was an understatement, but what could she do?

+++++++

At the end of a dilapidated neighborhood was a small bungalow barely keeping itself together. 

The house was made out of brick with peeled paint and moss at the oddest of places. The porch was non-existent and the window glass was slightly cracked with cobwebs surrounding it.

It was a sad sight but the house itself didn't stand out as much as it was supposed to. Some people who lived in the neighborhood would even say that the house was the best in their area.

Though that wasn't really something to brag about. Their area was a place that even the police refused to visit.

"So you rejected him?" A skinny man with tanish skin asked. The man had slightly gray hair but one could tell that it was from stress seeing as the man wasn't that old.

"No… I told him I needed time to think about it. I wanted to hear your opinion since mum had gone mad. She wanted me to agree to it! Even though she hadn't heard the terms and conditions yet." Arya exclaimed, her lips in a pout as she looked wronged.

Her previously packed fiery ginger hair was now let loose, falling right above her waist. 

"You, Arya!" Her mother yelled for the nth time that day.

She wasn't always like this, it was probably due to the stress of the day. In fact, her mother was dressed to go to her other job. She was a waitress at a small restaurant in the middle of the city. The place wasn't far but it also wasn't close.

"Calm down, honey. Try to look at it from Arya's point of view." Her father sighed, this was not the first time he was telling his wife to calm down.

"Yeah!" Arya smiled, thinking her father was on her side but her happiness was short-lived as soon as she continued to hear his remaining words.

"-But still, you shouldn't have rejected him, it actually is a wonderful opportunity for not only our family but for you, Arya." Her father explained. 

It's not that she didn't want to immediately accept such an offer, after all, it was only a marriage of convenience and she would still get money in the end, but she already had a boyfriend and she also didn't like Ryker.

"But what about Jace? He'll be absolutely heartbroken when I break up with him…" Arya muttered, mainly to herself, her voice cracking in the process.

"That's true, you have a boyfriend… but that could easily be fixed." Her mother held her chin in contemplation.

It wasn't a tough obstacle to cross, the only problem was that Arya's boyfriend was the next-door neighbor.

"You know what." Arya heaved a tired sigh as she got up from the couch that she had been seated on for the past two hours. 

With the attention of both her parents, Arya turned to her room but stopped right in front of her door and turned to look at them.

"I'll sleep on it." With a final smile, she shut the door.

From their moldy wall to their barely working TV, it was clear why her parents wanted her to get married to Ryker. She too understood.

But how could a parent be so fast to push their child to the wolves just for money?

Arya sprawled on her hard mattress as she thought, the sound of water dripping from her ceiling quickly lured her to a dreamless slumber.

Not even having enough time to fully enjoy her sleep, Arya was rudely awakened. The surrounding was dark when she first opened her eyes but she could still make out the faces of her parents. 

"Arya! Arya! Wake up!" Her father shook her body.

"What…?" Arya at that point in time, still feeling drowsy, was very confused.

"Get up, quickly!" Her mother pulled her out of bed and pushed her outside. 

There were no street lamps in their area so the car that was parked in front of their house was very obvious. 

"Where are we going, mum?" Arya asked, getting into the car. She was slightly embarrassed to be inside a stranger's car in her pajamas.

"Don't worry about that, you can continue to rest. We'll wake you up when we get there." Her mother, through her heavy breathing, smiled at her.

Although everything was suspicious, Arya still decided to trust her parents. They wouldn't do anything to hurt her, would they?

Arya closed her eyes, unable to fall asleep. She was like that for a while until her mother shook her shoulders, in an attempt to wake her.

When she got out of the car, she was stunned.

In front of her was a classy high-rise building, with tinted windows and an automatic door in front. The area around the building is well-kept, with proper greenery and statues of animals and objects. From where she was, Arya could tell that there was an underground parking lot further away from them, it was probably where the car that drove them went.

The place, to sum it all up, was beautiful and sophisticated.

"Mum, dad, don't tell me this place is where I think it is…" Arya's body trembled in both denial and anger as she said that.

This was not, in any way, funny.